Bolivia – Stay On Your Toes

Benjamin Levin is the Content Creator on the 2026 South American Epic.

When I was a kid playing soccer (football to the many), my coach always used to tell me, “Benjamin, stay on your toes!” Little good that did me because here I am in La Paz, Bolivia, writing travel blogs for an expedition cycling company rather than scoring goals for F.C. Barcelona… Alas, it was not all for nothing. Because here in Bolivia, with TDA Global Cycling, we have to stay on our toes.

Valle de Los Animales

Bolivia is a country of extremes. It was extremely cold yesterday morning. Today, on my morning ride up to Valle de Los Animales in La Paz, it was a tad under boiling. Out on the Altiplano, the population is sparse; llamas outnumber humans and abandoned buildings seem to stand one-to-one with inhabited ones. In El Alto and La Paz, it is the opposite. You are among the people, all the people, all the time. The streets are alive with vendors, business people, students, tourists, and stray dogs.

Llamas in the Altiplano

Even the traffic seemed extreme. On the road cycling into La Paz, it was heavy, but Ana Marie, our local support, told us there was about 50% less traffic than usual. Why? Right now, Bolivia is in the middle of a serious fuel shortage. For much of its history, Bolivia has been able to produce a good portion of its own fuel. That is no longer the case. The country still has the refining capacity, but there simply isn’t enough domestic crude oil to keep the system supplied. As a result, Bolivia has become increasingly dependent on imported fuel. And importing fuel requires U.S. dollars, something Bolivia is currently desperately short of. The result is four-day-long lines at gas stations, if those stations are even open at all.

Now theoretically you do not need fuel to ride your bike across Bolivia. Unfortunately, we are doing rather more than that. We are driving four vehicles supporting a group of 28 cyclists and 10 staff across hundreds and hundreds of kilometers, from Lake Titicaca to the Argentine border. So, as my soccer coach 15 years ago would be proud to hear, we have stayed on our toes.

Gas pumped wrapped up and closed in El Alto, Bolivia because there is no fuel at the station

Over the last few weeks, we have been collecting hundreds of liters of diesel in Peru in order to be as independent as possible from Bolivia’s struggling fuel system. We entered the country with four full diesel tanks and another 730 liters strapped to the roofs of two of our buses. In La Paz, our local contact was even able to source another 200 liters that she had stashed at home. Lucky us. Hopefully, that should be enough to get us into Argentina without too much trouble. Of course, this is Bolivia, and there are always a few variables to account for. A road closure, a political protest, a particularly ambitious pothole or some other unforeseen adventure that could change the equation pretty quickly…

Staying on your toes is one of the great skills that TDA staff excel at. As Will Druce, our Tour Leader from La Paz to Ushuaia, put it: “The tour is already taking us through some pretty remote areas where it can be hard to find basic resources… so this is just another extra challenge that we’re going to have to take on.” And that is expedition cycling for you. You can plan the route, bring a doctor and a mechanic, pack the food and bring nearly a thousand litres of diesel across an international border. But once you set off, you never quite know what is going to happen next. You just have to stay on your toes.

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South American Epic

This challenging expedition offers you the best opportunity to explore the vastness and diversity of South America by bike. In keeping with the TDA...